期刊名称：Journal of Indian Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health
电子版ISSN：0973-1342
出版年度：2013
卷号：9
期号：2
页码：22-25
出版社：Indian Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health
摘要：Substance use is an integral part of the society. Changing trends in the society show thatdrug abuse in children and adolescents is increasing day by day. It has been found thatthe age of initiation of substance use has gone down in last few years [1]. The socialacceptability of substance use is held as the most common cause, apart from easyavailability and lack of implementation of laws. The early onset of substance takingbehaviour has its own consequences. It leads to poor prognosis [2] i.e. once the substancetaking behaviour starts early it is more difficult to be managed and invariably ends insubstance use disorder in adulthood. It is accompanied with high risk behaviour [3] suchas gambling, stealing, drug peddling, fighting, road traffic accidents etc. thuspredisposing to life long irresponsible behaviour, decreased productivity of youth andadditional economic burden on the nation. Apart from the above mentioned, substanceabuse predisposes to mental disorders, especially when the onset is in childhood andadolescence. Mental disorders have been linked to various substances and there isevidence that the duration of substance abuse has a major role to play. It has been notedthat there are certain groups which are more vulnerable to substance abuse
